The Lackawanna Railroad in Northeastern Pennsylvania

By David Crosby

The Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad, better known as the Lackawanna Railroad, was organized in 1851 and thrived on the anthracite coal traffic originating from the area surrounding Scranton, Pennsylvania. The company came to operate a network of track between Hoboken, New Jersey, and Buffalo, New York, before becoming part of the Erie Lackawanna Railway in 1960. During the first decade of the 1900s, the railroad underwent a substantial modernization and improvement project, which was documented extensively by company-hired photographers. A century later, these images provide a fascinating insight into the everyday workings of a railroad and its interaction with the communities along its route. Nearly all of the railroad territory covered by this book remains in operation today.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
• Release date: Jul 14, 2014
• ISBN: 9781439646168

David Crosby

David Crosby used to read loads of children's picture books from his local library, pretending they were for his son George. Nowadays, David writes children's picture books himself!

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INTRODUCTION

The Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad can trace its roots to the 1832 chartering of the Liggett’s Gap Railroad. The railroad was intended to run from the tiny Pennsylvania hamlet of Slocum Hollow (now Scranton) west to the New York state line. Construction would not begin on the Liggett’s Gap Railroad until 1850 when the Scranton family invested in the line as a way to transport products from their ironworks in Slocum Hollow to customers in New York. The first products moved by rail from Slocum Hollow were in actuality some of the first iron T rails mass-produced in America. By October 1851, the railroad, now known as the Lackawanna & Western, was operating trains as far west as Great Bend, New York.

In 1853, the Lackawanna & Western Railroad acquired the yet-to-be-constructed Delaware & Cobb’s Gap Railroad, which had been chartered to run east from Scranton to the Delaware Water Gap. The combined enterprise was christened the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad but was widely known as simply the Lackawanna Railroad. By 1856, the Lackawanna Railroad was operating trains across the Delaware River into New Jersey; that same year, Slocum Hollow adopted the Scranton name. At its zenith, the Lackawanna Railroad’s main line would stretch from Hoboken, New Jersey, to Buffalo, New York. Including branch and secondary lines, total trackage neared 1,000 miles.

While the iron industry may have been the initial driving force behind construction of the railroad, the Lackawanna Railroad would enjoy prosperity for nearly 100 years due in large part to the lucrative anthracite coal trade. Anthracite, or hard coal, was considered superior to bituminous or soft coal because it tended to burn longer and hotter with less smoke and soot.

The Lackawanna Railroad took full advantage of anthracite coal’s clean-burning reputation and introduced Phoebe Snow, a fictional advertising character, in 1900. Miss Phoebe, as she was often called, spoke in rhymes extolling the cleanliness of Lackawanna Railroad passenger trains, whose locomotives burned the same hard coal. The Lackawanna Railroad also adopted the nickname the Road of Anthracite.

Prior to antitrust laws, many of the coal mines that fed the Lackawanna Railroad were also controlled by the company. The mining, processing, and transporting of hard coal was such a driving force in the economy of northeast Pennsylvania that Scranton came to be known as the Anthracite Capitol of the World. Over a 150-year period, beginning in 1820, an estimated three billion tons of coal were mined in northeastern Pennsylvania. During the peak years of anthracite production, over half of the working males in the Lackawanna Valley surrounding Scranton were employed by the coal industry.

Although coal could be considered the Lackawanna Railroad’s stock in trade, the company found success in the transportation of other commodities as well. The Lackawanna Railroad would transport large quantities of milk and agricultural products from rural farmlands to larger urban areas. Raw materials for the manufacturing and textile industries as well as finished products from the same would be shipped by rail. The lumber and cement fueled the nation’s construction boom of the late 1800s and provided a significant revenue source for the Lackawanna.

In the early 1900s, and buoyed by this financial success, Lackawanna Railroad president William Truesdale set the company on a program of unprecedented modernization. Perhaps the most impressive facet of the reconstruction was the 28.45-mile Lackawanna Cutoff, a section of main line trackage in northern New Jersey. The cutoff utilized millions of tons of fill in conjunction with deep rock cuts in order to reduce grades and eliminate sharp curves. This allowed for higher train speeds and a reduction in operating costs. Other highlights of the new route included the Paulinskill Viaduct and the Delaware River Bridge, two concrete viaducts considered engineering marvels for their time. When completed in December 1911, the cutoff was over 11 miles shorter than its predecessor.

A second, no less impressive, shortcut was constructed through northeast Pennsylvania between Clarks Summit and Hallstead. Upon its 1915 completion, the Clarks Summit–Hallstead Cutoff reduced grades and tight curvature over some 39 miles, reducing total track length by over 3.5 miles. This section of upgraded right-of-way also featured two impressive bridges, the Martins Creek and Tunkhannock Viaducts—the latter remains the largest concrete viaduct in the world to this day.

In addition to the new stretches of track in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, the Lackawanna Railroad built a series of awe-inspiring stations, the grandest of which was located in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and served as headquarters for the company’s Scranton Division. The company also expanded its repair shops in Kingsland, New Jersey, in 1903 and Scranton in 1909.

In the years following World War II, the nation would begin shifting away from the use of coal for home heating and other purposes. The decline in coal traffic coupled with competition from trucks using the new interstate highway system marked an end to the years of prosperity enjoyed by the Lackawanna Railroad. Improved inland waterways and ports also proved to be a drain on freight traffic. Even as the company introduced new streamlined passenger trains, Americans abandoned rail traffic for the comfort and convenience of the automobile. The final blow came in August 1955 when flooding from Hurricane Diane destroyed 17 bridges and nearly 60 miles of track.

On October 17, 1960, the Lackawanna Railroad completed a years-in-the-making merger with the Erie Railroad. Known as the Erie-Lackawanna, the resulting company would struggle financially for another 16 years. Some duplication of routes after the merger led to the abandonment of sizeable amount of former Lackawanna trackage in western New York State. On April 1, 1976, the Erie-Lackawanna was folded into the government-created Conrail along with several other faltering Northeast railroads. In the ensuing years, much of the former Lackawanna Railroad would be conveyed to other owners or abandoned outright. In 1980, the Binghamton-to-Scranton section was sold by Conrail to the Delaware & Hudson Railroad and is now owned by that company’s successor, Canadian Pacific Railway. Conrail discontinued operations east of Scranton to the Delaware Water Gap altogether that same year. Though dormant for a number of years, the Scranton–to–Delaware Water Gap section of the former Lackawanna has been resurrected and, once again, sees daily freight